Sept. 23-29, 2012 TV Club- The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries- Season 1-Ep. 4

[MacGyver]

Leave your thoughts, comments and reviews of The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries episode, "The Mystery of the Diamond Triangle" (featuring Nancy Drew) here.

[MacGyver]

I didn't get a chance to watch the episode yet and do a review, so hopefully I'll get to it soon, like maybe tonight.

[MacGyver]

Okay, I did watch the episode tonight. And I will once again try to give a brief summary without having to take too many posts- lol. We'll see how that goes.
        Anyway, once we get past the always cool intro music (which is slightly different for the Nancy Drew episodes, with Pamela Sue Martin getting credited first since she is the one featured in the episode rather than Shaun Cassidy and Parker Stevenson- but all three always get credited throughout the first season. When it's a Hardy Boys episode, Shaun and then Parker get credited and Pamela gets her credit afterwards. So once we have the last shot on Nancy Drew racing through the maze and stopping short for a close up shot and the announcer announcing the title of the episode, we go on to the opening shot- which is in the day time for once. (So far none of the episodes, Hardy Boys or Nancy Drew, have opened during the day time up until this episode.)
       Nancy Drew and George are flying in a sailplane, with Nancy working to earn her Diamond Triangle award- some sort of honor given within her local aviation community apparently. George is quite scared to be up there and says that Nancy conned her into coming because she needed a witness. (It's at these moments that we must remember that this Season 1 George Fayne is essentially a combination of George Fayne and Bess Marvin, so we see a bit of both of their personalities at times. Though we also see a bit more of the George we know from the books in this episode too.)
        Nancy spots a car going down into a ravine and calls Ned Nickerson via CB radio, telling him to call the sheriff about the car going down. Nancy lands the plane near the area but has to get out of there in a hurry, as a storm is coming through. (In fact, Ned warns her about a squall coming through when they're in the plane and that's another reason they land pretty quickly.)
       The sheriff [I'm not positive if this is supposed to be Chief McGinnis, but since it's said to be the sheriff, I would guess not...] later comes by to tell the gang that they couldn't find a car or driver or anything in that spot- not to mention that there is a barricade in place, and Ned gets taken to the police headquarters for making a prank call. (We have one of the show's trademark humorous moments here too, as Ned is wearing a pink nightgown of some sort while waiting for his clothes to dry. Nancy comments that it looks good on him and he gives a chagrined grimace in reply.)
       Nancy and George decide to go back out to the spot the next day to check it out but they can't find even any tire tracks. However, we do see that there's a guy with a walkie talkie who is watching them in the woods. There is also a loon that makes a weird screaming noise that is heard whenever the girls are in the area- that continues throughout the episode at the times they are out in this part of the woods- probably just something more to throw in to make things a little bit spooky. George also comments that that area is snake country if she's ever seen it.
          It's nice to see Nancy and George going to the library to do some research and looking through books there to find a picture of the car that Nancy saw. It's an unusual collector's car and so Nancy calls an antique car organization and finds that only two of them are around in the region and one is in River Heights. (The car is said to be from 1937, so it's definitely a classic- it would've been 40 years old in the episode and that would make it 75 years old now.) From there, Nancy and George pay a call on the owner of the car, and find out that his car has been stolen. This leads to Nancy persuading him to call on her father to serve as his lawyer (which Carson Drew later agrees to do after meeting with him) and thus the investigation continues.
           The cops later let Nancy and the gang know that they have indeed found the car wreck, but it's in another spot miles away from where Nancy saw the car go down. It's been burnt and thus leads the cops and Carson Drew to suspect that the car owner was lying about his car being stolen in order to get the insurance.
        Nancy and Ned go back up in the plane to look at the area again (apparently Nancy couldn't convince George to go up again that time) and this time Nancy spots the guy with the walkie talkie in the woods and gets his picture. Later, Nancy, Ned and George look at the picture and conjecture on why the guy would have a walkie talkie out there.
          At this point, I want to point out a few things. I like how George sticks by Nancy and tells her that she also believes the car owner (Morgan) is innocent (when the cops and Mr. Drew are doubtful) and has some hunches on things in the case and plans to help her solve it. That felt more like the George from the books. Also, Ned takes charge a couple of times in this episode- he goes down with Nancy to look at the wrecked car and ask her what's wrong. Nancy mentions that if the burnt debris is the fancy car seat covers it's supposed to have, then she's a fullback. Ned tells her she can play in his back field any time. (Another hint of Ned's care for Nancy and interest in her for a girlfriend.)
        Also, Ned lays things out for Nancy as she's contemplating going back out to the wooded area at night after looking at the picture of the walkie talkie guy. Now, keep in mind here that the car owner already commented earlier in the episode that Nancy was just a girl trying to help him out. (Though he did say that he didn't mean it in the sexist way that Nancy took it- I think he was just commenting on his bleak situation.) Ned also tells Nancy that she can't go to the woods at night on her own, and that George has made clear she doesn't want to go, and even if she did, two girls can't go by themselves to the woods. He was willing to go take a look, but it would have to wait until after he got finished with his work at the office.
(Another interesting point here- with the Hardy Boys, Frank's girlfriend in the books, Callie Shaw, has a more platonic relationship with him on the series and works part time doing office work for his father, Fenton Hardy. With Nancy Drew, Nancy's boyfriend in the books, Ned Nickerson, has a more platonic relationship with her on the series [though Ned and George indicate that he's interested in her as a girlfriend] and works part time doing office work for her father, Carson Drew.]
           Anyway, Nancy gets George riled up at Ned's show of sexism and essentially cons her into going back with her to the woods just to prove Ned wrong.
        They go out and find out how the car she saw go down the ravine got to another spot in the woods, even with the barricade in the way- two guys come by and disassemble the barricade and use it to make slats for their car to drive across the bridge that's out. And then they replace the sign. Nancy and George follow the car into the woods and find a chop shop hideout for cars- though this criminal operation seems to be dealing particularly in stealing cars that they have customers for and selling them to people with new paint jobs and license plates of course.
         Nancy and George wind up getting captured and Ned, who comes looking for them at Nancy's house (and apparently has a house key, which probably makes sense as he probably drops off work for Mr. Drew there at times.)- he sees Nancy's map of the wooded area and goes after them there. I thought it was neat that he gets through to Mr. Drew on his CB radio to let him know what's going on. Though the original books certainly didn't have cell phones and neither did this series, whenever a pay phone or a store or person's telephone wasn't available for use, they still had the same effect as a cell phone [well, to a limited geographical area and degree] through a CB radio. That's pretty cool.
         Ned winds up coming to the rescue and Nancy even comments on how forceful he is as he tells them to be quiet and follow him in making a run for it. They get caught in trying to escape but then things change when the police and Mr. Drew come in and the gang gets rounded up and off to jail. And there's an interesting involvement with a car insurance company as well, that adds to the development of the case.
      The car owner is proved innocent and gets insurance money to replace his stolen car and reward money as well. (Which he plans to use to help pay for his college tuition and then perhaps also to replace his car that he was restoring.)
        We have Nancy and George going up in the plane one more time to try to get Nancy's Diamond Triangle again- and this time, Nancy spots someone signaling on the ground. With groans from George, Nancy of course goes to check it out- looks like we've got another mystery on our hands!      

[MacGyver]

       Well, that's the wrap up of the episode there. I liked having more involvement from Carson Drew in this episode, as well as Ned and George taking roles that seemed very similar to their characters in the books. Also, the whole setup was very classic Nancy Drew per the books. Nancy starts out doing a pretty cool and daring thing for fun (flying the plane) and winds up stumbling into a mystery from there. She and George do some good old-fashioned legwork and we can see how they logically progress from one lead to another in order to eventually not only clear up the mystery of why a car went down a ravine and then can no longer be found- but also uncovers an entire criminal gang and brings them to justice. And Ned comes in at the end to rescue them. It is all very classic Nancy Drew books.
       I also liked the lightning bolt in this episode- the series definitely had a number of episodes that are set on dark and stormy nights and I think it all just adds to the mood. And I think the effect is done pretty well generally. I also liked the aerial shots- that was pretty cool.
     I think that's most all my comments on this episode. It was a fun and solid episode that read very true to the books to me.